Australian watchdog sues Facebook-owner Meta over fake crypto ads
Australia’s competition watchdog filed a lawsuit against Facebook owner Meta Platforms on Friday, alleging the social media giant failed to prevent scammers using its platform to promote fake ads featuring well-known people.
The advertisements, which endorsed investment in cryptocurrency or money-making schemes, could have misled Facebook users into believing they were promoted by famous Australians, the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC) said.
“We will review the recent filing by the ACCC and intend to defend the proceedings,” a Meta spokesperson said in an emailed statement, declining to comment further as the case was before court.
The ACCC said the ads used images of several Australian business leaders, TV hosts and politicians and contained links to fake media articles that included quotes attributed to the personalities.
Users who signed up were contacted by scammers to convince them to deposit funds into their account